THE ASKHABAD WELL A QUATERNARY TIME-SCALE. 
Gravel with alittle loam 
ele a and gravel 
an 



Brown loam 
“ooo! d 
100 se] Loam and gravel 
200 Brown loam 
300 ySan 
le oe with gravel 
San 
Brown loam 
Sand 
400 Brownloam 
vvonenaesd Sand 
Brown loam 
eseeers| Gravel mba loam 
p S080 ce Cobble 
Brown oe 
Megane Loam with cobbles 
Brownloam 
200000 Loam with cobbles 
oP Cobbles beset loam 
oer neo a4 and gravel 
iio loam 
| Sa 
500 
600 
oar with gravel 
s 
Loam with gravel 
be) Loam and sand 
Brown loam 
huusud Sand over gravel 
psecos] Cobbles under sand 
900 
Brown loam 
1000 
1100 
Brown loam 
1200") Sand 
Brown loam 
1300 
q Cobbles 
Brown loam 
OOH al cana 
pocodd eeoee over loam 
e209 Cobb 
1500 
Brown loam 
1600 
:-| Sand 
Brown loam 
coved Cobbles 
1700 
Brownloam 
beers! Sand 
Brown loam 
resco] Gravel over sand 
ecsccee| Gravel 
Brown loam 
os.re| Gravel 
oe Brown loam 
2200 
Fig. 21.—Geological Column, 
Askhabad Well. 
61 
SOUTH KURGAN IRON CULTURE. 
After an apparently long period of abandonment, the 
south Kurgan was again occupied, when a new cycle of 
aggrading was again filling the valley, by a people having 
an iron culture, during which at least 12 feet of culture- 
strata accumulated. 
ANAU CITY, 
After the abandonment of the South Kurgan, and at a 
time when the valley filling had progressed to a height at 
which the natural process of alluviation was superseded by 
the present system of artificial irrigation, the city of Anau 
was founded, early in our era, and, after accumulating 5 
feet of culture-strata characterized by a red pottery, there 
appeared a greenish variety and a glazed and enameled 
and painted ware. In the middle of the fifteenth century, 
its large and beautiful mosque was founded, and in the 
middle of the nineteenth century the city was abandoned 
and became a ruin. 
Such is the main outline of the most essential observed 
data on which the argument relating to the chronology of 
the assumedly interdependent physical and human history 
of the oasis of Anau is based, and which is assumed in its 
physical aspects and as regards the fundamental character- 
istics of the cultures to be regional in its applicability. 
As regards uncertainties in the platting of the physical 
data, while the unbroken line representing the aggrading 
during the copper culture is drawn exactly.where it belongs, 
the point where the first aggrading ends and where the cut- 
ting-down begins may belong opposite a point 12 feet either 
way on the scale of feet on the culture scale. The gap 
between the copper and iron cultures is based partly on 
archeological and partly on geological requirements affecting 
the rate of cutting-down; it may be wider, but may not well 
be much smaller. There is little doubt that a gap should 
show on the plate between North and South Kurgans, but 
in the absence of any means of estimating it, even proxi- 
mately, I have preferred to leave it unrepresented. 
THE ASKHABAD WELL. 
I can not leave this part of the discussion without refer- 
ring again to the Askhabad Well. As stated above, this 
extends to a depth of 2,200 feet, and its bottom is still in 
delta sediments more than 1,400 feet below the level of the 
ocean. When we remember that the sinking of the zone of 
deposition is a geodynamic process due to the gravity of the 
secular accumulation of thin layers of alluvium, we realize 
